


Love is a Game; You're the Prize

by I_Weave_Dreams



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 17:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18266150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Weave_Dreams/pseuds/I_Weave_Dreams
Summary: Adam is the first ever bisexual lead of a reality love game show. Gansey is the host. Only the promise of a $100,000 pay off for his student loans ensures Adam’s cooperation. Out of 15 candidates, it’s an eccentric daughter of psychics named Blue that catches Adam’s eye first. And, for different reasons, a savagely handsome guy with a shaved head, a leather jacket, and a perpetual‘I’ll fuck you up’attitude that Adam can’t get off his mind. Who will Adam choose in the end? And will their connection prove real, or will secrets bigger than any reality show could dream up prove too big to overcome? Who will triumph in the end?Stay tuned for weekly episodes!





	Love is a Game; You're the Prize

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a f*cking adventure. Buckle up, friends!

There are two major qualities that make up Adam Parrish: the practical and the unfathomable. Those two qualities were currently warring with each other, long swords held stubbornly at each other’s throats, thinly-veiled threats slick as blood on their lips, as Adam listened to Gansey’s preposterous proposal. 

Richard Campbell Gansey lll, ever the diligent student, had studied hard at the subject of Adam Parrish. Having failed in a cacophony of flying colors innumerable times in the past at figuring out his labyrinth of a friend, he’d made sure to learn from every mistake. He’d been born with the Gansey charm, an additional appendage he’d questioned no more than he questioned having ten finger and ten toes. It might have been the bait, shiny and resplendent and alluring that had attracted Adam Parrish in the beginning, but his friend, once a simple creature, turned out to be a Blue Marlin in guppy’s clothing. The prize of any great hunter’s collection, Adam Parrish was not an easy one to grasp ahold of, much less reel in with flashy words and false promises.

Which was why Gansey got straight to the point of his proposal. “My mother is forcing me to host a reality game show. It’s what the ‘hip and cool kids’ are into. That’s a direct quote from her. I’ll have to have a word with her publicist, Reginald. Not Reggie. _Never_ Reggie, I’ll have you know. I nearly lost a finger trying to consolidate him from three syllables to two. Poor lad. He’s learned from the best. My mother. He can’t be saved, I’m afraid. Still,” Gansey rallied, getting back on track effortlessly, “Now that she’s no longer a council woman, her advisors are suggesting she move into reality television to stay relevant. And what’s more relevant than her twenty-two-year-old son hosting a reality show in her name? 

“Global Warming and the state of foreign affairs, I argued. She wasn’t having any of that. Have I told you how many emojis she sends to me per text? It’s bordering on alarming.”

Adam, who was busy calculating his accumulated student debt over the past three years, plus his projected student debt for graduate school, plus his living expenses, minus his projected scholarships and his meager work income, was only half-listening to Gansey.

To be fair, he was only ever half listening to anyone. Gansey, for all his blue-blooded roots afforded him, was not special in regards to this. Having lost his hearing in his left ear in his teens, Adam could only half-listen to anyone. Despite being an overachiever, Adam sometimes leaned on this particular crutch more than necessary, bypassing his pride on numerous occasions when it came to his enthusiastic yet unknowably insensitive best friend. 

“That must be hard for you,” Adam replied diligently, scratching out a four and writing a six in its place. He frowned, the muscles in his mouth shuffling easily into their default setting. He couldn’t really afford for that four to become a six. He thought he’d done the calculations correctly before even entering undergraduate school. Where was he screwing up?

He ignored the voice that nagged, incessant as a housewife, in his unhearing ear, _‘You’re a Parrish. Being a screw up is in your blood, mongrel._ ’ He just needed to rework things. Maybe pick up a few extra shifts at the local mechanic shop to cover the ever-inflating costs of tuition. He also ignored the voice that reminded him he was already stretching himself thin at the three jobs he had lined up for his summer vacation. He’d reduced some of the hours to allow time for Gansey and whatever adventures his friend, the History major, had in store for them. 

That History was a major reserved for either the naïve, the rich, or both, Adam had dutifully bit his tongue on. When Adam allowed himself to push past the thick red veil of resentment, he allowed himself to acknowledge Gansey as being more than just his rich best friend. He was Adam’s lifeline. A floatation device in the shitstorm of responsibility and self-loathing that was Adam’s life if he let himself slip too far from the shore. Too far from the weight of school and responsibility and a future free from anxiety that anchored him to the present. 

He’d just have to break the news to Gansey that traipsing across the mist-covered fields of some sleepy, obscure town wasn’t going to fit into his agenda this summer after all. Adam grimaced. It was going to be like breaking the news to a toddler that Santa was going to be skipping over his house for Christmas this year.

Gansey nodded and heaved a generous sigh, expensive designer blazer bunching up artfully around his sculpted shoulders as he leaned back into his seat. “It is,” he agreed. “It really is a tragedy. To think, some shallow, privileged boy only scraping by on his good looks and questionable personality is going to receive $100,000 just to be fought over by twenty-four other highly attractive men and women hoping to be his one-true-love.”

Adam’s ears perked up. Adam Parrish would not admit his ears perked upon pains of death. But they did. {i>“One-hundred-thousand-dollars,” he scoffed under his breath, the underlying tone expressing the unspoken words of _‘You’ve got to be shitting me,’_ that Adam would never permit himself to say. That would imply he cared. Which he didn’t. He definitely, definitely didn’t care that some idiot would be making 5X his income just for making out with random chicks and being an overall Grade A sleaze ball on live television. 800 hours of work and pay made in 12 weeks sipping pineapple-soaked alcoholic beverages and judging the circumference of fake breasts. 

No, Adam Parrish didn’t care about the injustice of that reality. The lead tip of Adam’s pencil cracked and crumbled into a tiny city of silver dust as he pressed it too firmly into his notepad. No, Adam didn’t care. Not at all.

“It is progressive of my mother, though, I’ll give her that. It’s the first year Game of Love is having a bisexual lead, did you know that?”

Adam didn’t know that. Gansey knew that Adam didn’t know that. Adam knew that Gansey knew that Adam didn’t know that. This was how Gansey had learned to play the game that was Adam Parrish. Because Adam Parrish knew that he was being played, but the trick was to make Adam not _care_ that he was being tricked. And that usually worked, Gansey had figured out, by playing on Adam’s insatiable need to know everything. 

“No shit?” Adam said, pausing in his calculations. 

Gansey’s lips pressed together, a king clearly upset with his companion’s use of profanity more suited to a commoner, but he gallantly proceeded forward without comment. “No shit,” Gansey echoed, the words shifting around on his tongue like a bit of unpalatable food he was shifting around, trying to disperse the flavor of until he could politely swallow without gagging and move forward in his kingly duties. 

“I suppose that was Reginald’s idea. Or Adelaide’s. Or some other three-syllable advisor of hers. It’s also the only reason I’ve agreed. I’ve been a long time advocate and ally of the LGBTQ movement, as I’m sure you’ll remember. My fourth period Renaissance Warriors class has gotten in the way of club meetings for me this semester; I simply cannot miss a class. It would throw off my entire research for my dissertation. But I’ve been corresponding via email regularly with Raven Silverfox, the club’s leader, on current happenings and events coming up.”

Adam snorted. He’d brought his notepad up too late to catch the full brunt of the snort, managing to make himself sound like a car engine failing to start.

Gansey, owner of The Pig, a raging orange Camaro, who was no stranger to a failing car engine, glared at Adam’s poor mimicry. 

“She really is a lovely and passionate woman,” Gansey enthused. _Despite her name,_ his words implied. Neither said it. Adam allowed Gansey this. It was his duty as a Gansey royal advisor to not shed an unflattering light on his king.

Adam, a bisexual himself, had nothing really to protest against who Gansey did or didn’t spend his free time corresponding with. What he _did_ protest against was superfluous names that induced eye-rolls from less than sympathetic prospects to their cause. It was hard enough getting the world to recognize that people could be attracted to both genders. He didn’t need his fellow bisexuals fulfilling their inner five-year-old’s wet dreams and renaming themselves by grab-bag picking their favorite words out of a pretty princess hat. 

If Adam followed that logic, he’d be Sir Brave Stallion the Bold right now, double majoring in Winning Princesses’ hearts and Battling Dragons instead of Economics and Architecture. 

“Don’t look at me with that cynic’s sneer,” Gansey warned. “I only got three hours of sleep last night. I can’t fight your pessimism and write a five-page paper on why the renaissance era was the closest to utopia the world will ever get. I simply don’t have the mental capacity.”

Adam smirked. This was Gansey being cheeky. Most people didn’t know there was more to Gansey than politically correct dinner humor and perfectly-tied bow-ties, but Adam knew the real Gansey. And Gansey knew the real Adam. This was the way to Adam’s heart. Comradery. A display of mutual distain for the current state of affairs. Gansey wasn’t lying. He truly didn’t look forward to the paper he had to write for Mr. Vandermouthe. But if he warmed Adam up to his proposal, like feeding a dog a treat before taking him to the vet that would ultimately benefit the canine without the pooch knowing it at first, then where was the harm?

Instantly, the guilt sliced into Gansey like the sword of a renowned soldier. He was the unfortunate recipient, his muscle parting like butter under the experienced weapon. He let it. Not a dog, he insisted. He knew Adam hated the word- used to think of himself as the same level of some tamed beast who put up with its owner’s commands and beatings. Longing for attention, mouth salivating at whatever affection it was shown. 

No, Adam was nothing like that. Gansey would have to think of a better analogy…But before he could Adam rolled his eyes and snatched Gansey’s slice of sausage and black olive pizza from his plate, taking a bite. “How do you do it? You’re a god among men,” Adam replied dryly, but in a pleased, closer-than-friends, more-like-brothers, sort of way.

It was then Gansey knew that he had wormed his way into Adam’s good mood. Adam, who wouldn’t even take a penny to throw into a wishing-well from Gansey, had taken a bite of his food. Easy as taking a breath to supply oxygen to his lungs. Perfunctory. Effortlessly.

Gansey worked hard to hide his pleased smile. “As I was saying. It’s a shame. I wish the money could go to a more worthy person. Not some Instagram model. I told my mother they should allow college students to audition. Insist that all earnings would have to go to paying towards college tuition and not just a bank account to fund booze-fueled cruises. She said if I could rally enough signatures and volunteers at my college, I had myself a deal.” 

“You’re taking on Mrs. Gansey?” Adam said around a mouthful of pizza, picking up his pencil again to scratch at his paper. “Will they be selling tickets for this particular showdown? Let me know the date; I’ll see if I can get some time off work. I know a guy if they’re sold out already.”

If Gansey wasn’t so delighted by the easy way Adam traded quips with him, by the way his shoulders had lifted higher, shaking off whatever multitude of hands that took turns weighing him down, he would have rolled his eyes. If he didn’t pull this together quick, he would lose Adam to numbers and calculations and dusty, furrowed eyebrows.

Because he knew he was on borrowed time here, with Adam. This light-hearted, weightless version Adam couldn’t – and wouldn’t – last. The clock would strike midnight. The gleaming carriage would turn back into a pumpkin. Because even levity was a commodity Adam traded in. Along with his time, his sleep, and his money. He wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in it too long for fear of whatever consequences he imagined he’d face.

“I’ll speak with Reginald,” Gansey indulged dryly. It was time to play on Adam Parrish’s other weakness. The ‘ol one-two-punch his father, Richard Cambell Gansey ll had taught him. Tossing down the neatly bound stack of paper he’d been holding, Gansey sighed dramatically and fell back into his chair. “Come on, Parrish, you know what I’m asking you. Don’t make me beg. You haven’t got room to pencil in my pity party before your 4:15 class, I know it. I checked,” he said from under the arm he’d draped desperately over his face. “Please, I’d owe you. A Glendower-level favor.”

Gansey could see without seeing that Adam was biting his already abused bottom lip, a weary sigh locked and loaded in the confines of his exhausted chest. “I don’t have the time,” Adam said, his voice clipped. Accusing. _‘I don’t have the time to spare and you know it. Don’t rub it in,_ ’ it accused without accusing. Just like Gansey had asked without asking. Until he did. And Adam was one second away from really accusing Gansey for being oblivious and insensitive and this whole thing would blow up into a week-long silent treatment Gansey wasn’t prepared to fight right now.

“Sorry,” Adam said, managing to sound only a little forced. “Really. I’d help out – you know, ugh, audition or whatever, to help get your mom off your back if I could. I just don’t have the time between my Advanced Physic’s test I have to study for and the essay in my Honor’s Literature class – ”

Adam went on, but Gansey was so startled by his friend’s apology that he’d forgotten his theatrics and let the arm slip from his face so he could stare at his Adam. Adam apologizing. It was like discovering an ancient artifact he’d long coveted but never truly expected to unearth.

“It’s alright. There’s no commitment involved.” Not _yet_ , anyway, but Gansey didn’t need to lay all his cards out just yet. “If you could just sign this paper you’d be doing me a world of favor. You do know how my mother loves her documents. If I can just make it look like I’m being proactive in engaging the student body, that should placate the former congresswoman of Virginia for a while, at least.”

“Nobody know what ‘placate’ means,” Adam replied with a sigh. Except Adam did know what it meant, now that he was a full fledged college student. But it felt like something he ought to say. Even though they were far away from the third world country that was Henrietta, Virginia, Adam couldn’t shake its grasp completely. 

Gansey straightened, immediately in presidential mode, desperate to make up for the mistake of making anyone feel put out by his word choice. Normally, Adam would cut him off. Save Gansey from himself. But it bought him time to consider if he should just sign Gansey’s stupid paper or not.  
He conducted a quick pros and cons list in his head.   
PROs:   
1) It’d make Gansey happy  
2) Signing a piece of paper required 5 seconds of his time vs. the hours of time it’d take listening to Gansey discuss how to get his mother off his back  
3) $100,000 towards his student debt was a helluva lot of money if he was chosen to be on the show. Not that he wanted to be on the stupid show.  
4) There was little chance anyone would pick him to be the center of a reality love show. That was reserved for conventionally handsome men with limited vocabulary but deep pockets. So, what was the harm?  
5) Ugh…It’d make Gansey happy?

His Pros list ended there so he switched to the Cons.  
Cons:  
1) He didn’t have the time for a reality show. Even if it took place during the summer. He had to work for a living. (Adam ignored the fact that numbers 3 & 4 on his PROs list nullified this Con.  
2) Ugh…Reality TV was for the lonely and the desperate? (Because though Adam was often lonely, he was never desperate.

Adam tapped his mental pencil against his mental sheet of paper. He chewed on an imaginary eraser, trying to come up with a number 3, 4, 5, 6, infinity. 

It took another minute of questioning his insanity, but Adam finally sighed, a long suffering kind of thing normally reserved for tired parents who’ve had enough of their child’s antics but have no choice but to indulge them in this particular venture.

“Alright, alright. Hand me the paper.”

Gansey perked up, slumped shoulders suddenly pulling back into the picture of a model boy, ready to take on the world with renewed fervor. “You’ll sign?”

Gansey was so genuinely excited Adam didn’t have the heart to make a joke at his expense. Comments about being a mama’s boy and winning the hearts of America with a Pout Heard Round the World died a valiant death on Adam’s tongue. At least he knew they would have been funny.

“Yeah, yeah. Just hand the paper over, _Richard,_ don’t make this a thing.”

Gansey winced at his formal name and dug into his rucksack, handing the paper over a little more subdued. Except his smile was slapped back into place as Adam scratched his name onto the paper, occupying the number #132 spot out of 300.

“Am I going to regret this?” Adam said, handing the thin stapled packet of papers back to Gansey.

Gansey slipped the packet quickly into his backpack as if he thought Adam might suddenly change his mind and go diving across the table for the paper if he was forced to stare at it and reconsider his decision for too long. “Not at all, Parrish. You’ve done a grand deed for your fellow man. Perhaps Reginald will let me call him Reggie now that I’ve accomplished nearly half the required quota of student body signatures that my mother requires.”

“Never gonna happen,” Adam replied, smiling as he bit into a slice of pizza as Gansey started in on his woes of dealing with the personal assistants of his own dear mother.

* * *

That should have been the last Adam heard of any reality love show. 

Except, it wasn’t. 

Because apparently he’d been chosen at random in a pool for 50 names off that goddamn list Gansey had Adam sign.

There was to be an audition process in front of talent agents. In front of other nameless, soulless TV show people. And Jesus _Christ_ actual cameras.

“It’ll only take 5 minutes. 20 tops!” Gansey insisted, as if 5 and 20 minutes wasn’t a substantial leap. This resulted in 5 to 20 minutes of Adam explaining that time was a precious commodity to some people who hadn’t been born with a silver spoon shoved in their mouths.

Adam nearly told Gansey where he could shove said cameras. But he didn’t. Because Gansey promised this was only to fulfil pretenses. Adam could be as surly and covered in grease from his part time mechanic job as he wanted to be. There was no way the producers would pick him. Honestly, his mother had no say in it. It was all the head honchos who made the big bucks that sorted this kind of thing out. If Adam wasn’t so against the idea of being picked to be the lead on this stupid reality show, he would have been offended by how eagerly Gansey reassured him that the producers would never pick him to lead the show.

Plus, Gansey promised to record notes for their shared Ethics class so Adam wouldn’t have to for the entire semester. So, really, what did Adam have to lose?

Except apparently they loved Adam and his _“Brutally honest small-town vibe”._ Apparently it was _“Just what America needed”_. A _“refreshing face”_ to shake up the world and give them someone they could _“relate”_ to. 

Which was how Adam ended up in the top 20 picks for candidates. 

And then the top 10.

Then 5.

Then 2. 

And suddenly Adam was being sat down in a room full of women and men in expensive suits. There were stacks of papers that required signing and endless legal terms that the lawyer Adam had allowed Gansey to hire for him eagerly listened to, occasionally chiming in when something prodded her to do so.

In a fluster of arguments, legal meetings, blatant refusals, epic Adam Parrish cold-shoulders, and guilt trips of Gansey size proportions, Adam found himself in a position he never in his entire small town life expected to be in.

Even in his wildest dreams of the future, which included stainless steel mansions, slick cars with Italian leather interiors, and the kind of job that required an assistant who needed an assistant, Adam had never imagined _this_ for himself.

Because somehow, in a twist of fate Adam still didn’t fully understand, he was currently dressed in a suit that cost more more money than he’d ever owned in his entire lifetime. He stood outside of a ridiculously expensive mansion at the end of a stupidly long cobblestone driveway. Seriously, _cobblestones,_ like he was in some 1800 English romantic drama film. 

Several cameras were pointed in his face as producers told Adam to ‘Look alive!’ and _‘Show America how excited you are to meet your possible future bride. Or groom!’_ and _“Seriously, stop scowling. Nobody likes a grumpy bear.”_

Adam shifted uncomfortably in the tailored suit despite the fact that it fit like an expensive glove. Jesus _fuck_ how had he ended up here? His eyes darted around the small sea of cameras and show people that stood poised on the opposite side of the expansive driveway. Where was Gansey?

Sweat slicked his palms. Something rumbled in his stomach, threatening to rebel its way up his esophagus. 

He swallowed. The inside of his mouth was growing hot and watery.

But before he could go into full blown panic mode, somebody shouted, “The first limo is arriving! Cameras 1 and 3, pull focus on the drive up. 2 and 4, focus on candidate #1 coming out of the limo. Cameras 5 and 6, get a close up on Adam’s reactions. It’s showtime, people, look alive!”

Everything inside of Adam screamed at him to run.

What in the _hell_ had he gotten himself into?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, thanks for reading!
> 
> Ronan will be in the next chapter, so don't worry! Our sexy murder boy will grace us with his presence soon enough.
> 
> Please leave a review if you enjoyed this! Let me know if this is worth continuing. If not, I'll just write this for myself (bcuz I'm obsessed with this idea and I need to indulge my inner fan girl) or if not i'll just write this for myself and not bothering posting. No biggie either way! Insomnia is my constant companion so ya gurl gonna do what she gotta do :D
> 
> Thanks so much for reading <3
> 
> If you're interested, let me know what kind of reality love show "challenges" you'd love to see Adam go through? What are some fun date ideas?? What chaos would you like me to put our beautiful boy through??


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